EPT Baden – Part I
In which Mr. Hall and Ms. Mason Arrive Tardily, and Watch the Gaming Progress Through Twin Day Ones.
Snoopy might have been confused about the country in which Baden is located, but I can ease those of the ‘Austria’ opinion by telling them that they are correct. A mere hundred Euro cab ride from Vienna, this is the kind of town which photographed from any angle could make good postcards filed under ‘tranquil’ or ‘picturesque.’ And right in the middle of it, for no apparent reason, is a large, 
opulent casino run by Casinos Austria, which played host this week to both the third EPT event of the season, and the Poker EM – the largest 7-card Stud tournament in Europe.
I updated the four-day, 10k starting stack, NLHE event last year, and found myself wondering how I’d managed to forget that the press room was located a floor down from the gaming area, and that a set of marble steps (and a humourless desk attendant continually requesting money) were in the way. This in no way detracts from the show they put on there for the players and even the lowly press – a comfortable environment and continually refreshed buffet including something I thought only existed in dreams or halfway across Texas – unlimited fillet steak. More on this later.
After the relatively high proportion of players recognised to players not recognised experienced in Barca and London, it came as a bit of a shock to once again feel dropped in a sea of similarly-attired Scandinavians and local players, with the small islands of Julian Thew, Bad Girl and Steve Vladar, John Kabbaj, Dubai, DPommo and Ben Grundy, for example, to focus on. A technique which shall remain my professional secret was used to track the others doing well and faring badly, and looking over the update from the Day Ones (you don’t think I actually remember all this?) it’s quite hard to pick what should make the Edited Highlights.
Except, perhaps, for the early and excruciating outdraw perpetrated by one of the more entertaining
players to watch, Woody Deck. Lithuanian resident Woody took on a “young, tight kid from Australia,” limping under the gun with a suited AJ, deciding to call the guy’s raise to 900 (blinds 100/200, I think; we arrived late due to Travel Agent Incompetence). The flop came a rainbow K 10 4, which Woody check-called. The turn brought the 8s, so in his own words, “I think for a second I have a double gutshot, then realise it's still just a gutshot. And now that completes the rainbow. So...I bet out 2,300.” Aussie Matey raises to 5,000 (leaving himself 2,400). Not feeling, perhaps, that he's committed, Woody makes "a bad read." He moves in, call with set of Kings, river the Qd.
So with Woody’s 22,000 looking good for the early stages of the first flight, he proceeded to receive respect rating 1 (10 being high) for the next three hours, and not quite make Day Two. Other early exits, deduced from their appearance in cash games, included Willie Tann, Mickey Wernick, as well as JP Kelly, who looked like he was enjoying the event as much as having root canal work done. This is uncharacteristic of the usually cheerful Mr. Kelly, who’d had some nasty poker luck early as his KK missed a nice spot to double off QQ, and would have done if Queens Matey had re-raised preflop instead of calling along with a limping AJ which hit an Ace on the flop. “They’re calling me with anything,” was his rueful sum-up.
It looked a bit like work, rather than fun for Tony Chessa, too (he disappeared before I gained any 
real clue as to what had been going on) - he was sat on a table which seemed rather heavily filmed for a Day One. It turned out that this was because of none other than Jan Heitmann, close up magician extraordinaire and poker player. Not sure which one is his day job. Along with George Danzer, they make up quite a high percentage of young German players on the EPT, and were getting the whole bought-in, filmed continually treatment…they found themselves playing on one Day One each, which meant plenty of attention as both Jan and George accumulated steadily at the beginning, before losing the lot before the close of play. There’s nothing quite like being filmed doing the slow walk.
Climber of the day had to be awarded posthumously (figuratively speaking) to El Blondie – Dave Colclough had experienced nothing but defeat in the early stages, including that old chestnut set over set. Down to 600 at one point, he made a pretty startling comeback to around 25k, before running 88 into AA in the last level before the end. Also starting well but not actually finishing were
Mr Kerrigan and Xuyen Pham, who despite benefiting from an early self-admitted “bad bad play” from Norseman Sverre Sundbo, didn’t quite get there. A final table finish in the Consolation €2,000 event might have cheered her up a little bit, however.
Story of Day 1A (well, both Day Ones, actually, thus providing a handy icing layer between the dry cake halves of my depiction of them) is that of Rodion Cherednichenko, a Russian player whom no-one seemed to have heard of until he topped 200k and could be ignored no longer. This is slightly unfair; Chris Hall (NoflopsHomer to update readers) spotted his rise to chip domination early on, and he soon went from being “this guy who flopped the nuts and got paid off,” to “this Russian guy next to Ram who flopped the nuts again and got paid off,” to “Rodion, who just stacked another player.” You see where I’m going with this – the guy won huge pot after huge pot and appeared to be drinking wine and having a good time too. I salute him, and commend his behaviour, which while certainly excitable was good natured all the way to the final table. I think. It was kind of hard to understand what he was saying.
Anyhow, there was another whole batch of players to start, and leaving Rodion with more than double the stack of the next highest chipped player, they had some work to do if they were going to challenge him (and the other leaders, Peter Gould, Ramzi Jelassi and Jonas Molander). Thinking that it would all be as easy as beating Flushy at hi-lo Omaha if we were to just turn up on time for once, Chris and I were proven wrong by the sheer number of faces we did not recognise. Luckily, Ben ‘Milkybar Kid’ Grundy, Andreas Hagen and Julian Thew shared a table, so we had somewhere to stand and watch while we desperately clawed information from other sources. Ben was out almost instantaneously, however, after “AA v 23 cost me 30% of my chips when the board came 247Q2. I bet all the way and my opponent had 23! Couple of hands later JJ v KK on a T high board! Then donated my last 2500...” It’s great when people can bring themselves to tell us what befell them – they (almost) always get it right and don’t limit themselves to one exclamation mark per post, rendering it all more exciting than when I do it.
Early though Ben’s trip home was, pretty much everyone outlasted Dubai, apart from the other guy in his hand who’d flopped the nut straight with him and a third Matey, whose flush freeroll came 
through and provided the earliest double elimination I’ve ever seen. A cursory glance to see that nothing else dramatic was unfolding in the first level, and we could take stock of the players we knew. Vicky Coren, of course, whose grin wasn’t quite as wide as mine would have been if I’d won the last EPT, Ash Hussain, who wasn’t grinning but who constantly made me smile with his recounting of his psych-out strategy against George Danzer, and the properly poker-faced Michael Ellis (whom I was secretly rooting for having two-outed him in the Gutshot festival after being resoundingly outplayed).
And then we had some names I recall doing rather well in previous EPT events, Mads Andersen, Henrik Olander, Edgar Skjervold, as well as the standard Ones To Watch like Andy Black, Marcel Luske and Martin Wendt. The British contingent was small and grew smaller over the course of the day, although Steve Vladar and Karl Mahrenholz had already comfortably made Day Two, along with Marc Goodwin, and Phil Shaw, for example, slightly less comfortably. By the time we lost Ross
Boatman, and a new set of tougher opponents joined David Pomroy’s table, threatening his above average stack, it was looking like only Julian and maybe Mark Teltscher would be heading through to the second day. Mark, by the way, seems to keep the ‘table chat On’ switch permanently down these days – after being raised off a hand preflop and shown 77, he railed, “Call that a hand? You see what happened to the last guy…” This trailed into vaguely intimidating mumbling, but I seem to remember that he was addressing Juha Helppi, who looked he may have been born impervious to such things.
Meanwhile those who started out all right headed downwards in the last few levels – e.g. Julian Thew, who at the eleventh hour raised under the gun to 2,500 with 99, found a re-raise from the small blind, and made “the right move at the wrong time,” pushing in and finding Aces against him. 
Earlier Richard Gryko had vanished suddenly, and this time without building a ridiculous chip lead first. I also had the pleasure of meeting mrsmummy, who got a thumbs up from my similarly-railing mother for taking an Austrian poker support holiday. Despite his being one of only five players we were asked to keep an eye on (there was somewhat of an interactivity lull, although not a watching one), I failed miserably and learned only (and later) that the Unknown Soldier next to him was a poser who wanted to be like Mr. Cool and that the previous days’ hard negotiations with the bandits at Southall Travel had taken its toll on me. Despite being a curious amalgamation of disarmingly blunt and unexpectedly eloquent, it was seemingly impossible to get him to tell you about hands, having missed all of note.
Not so Dean Sanders, whom I have known for a while via the Gutshot (and the odd homegame in South London) – starting the day by hitting the ground running, he reached the 25k mark early, then was taken to just 1,500 after two AK races in close succession. Moving in then looking only at the As, he hit a 2s 4s 5s flop which turned into a pair of Aces, for the win…but even after Chaz Chattha doubled him up again with AJ vs. AK, it was all to go back to another small pair (88) after his A10 hit two Aces on the flop, with an Eight following on the river. He said he was having a great
time, however, and appeared to be thriving on living on the edge, chipwise, and planning on attending the full EPT circuit this year. But it was Ash Hussain who proved the most entertaining player to watch – he was the subject of a post entitled, “Ash Hussain doubles up without looking,” which must be a good indicator of the dire situation his chips had reached, and within the next hour had risen to 22k, finishing the day with 36k and a Climber title. You never know, that accolade might actually be recognised with a trophy in a few years.
….Day Two and The Final Coming Soon in the Second Thrilling Instalment: EPT Baden Part II…